¢Cents Per Point

Award travel, measured

Fly the cabin you keep reading about.

Most people earn points well and burn them badly — 0.6¢ on a gift card, a transfer made a week before the bonus landed. I track every redemption in cents per point and only book when the number earns its seat.

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The Eiffel Tower lit gold at night, reflected in the Seine.
Paris · the reason for the spreadsheet
The method
Every redemption logged in cents per point — flagged good or bad against a fixed target.
The discipline
Issuer rules, transfer ratios and expiry dates in one place, so no window closes unnoticed.
The point
Premium cabins and better hotels for a fraction of cash — without hoarding forever.

What you can get

Two ways in

Buy the system I use, or hand me one trip and let me plan the booking.

The spreadsheet

The Churning Tracker

Ten linked tabs covering the entire lifecycle of a card — application through annual fee decision — plus the redemption log that tells you whether the burn was actually good.

  • Card history: approvals, minimum spend, bonus posted, annual fee, closures
  • Issuer application rules built in — 5/24, 2/90, 2/3/4, 6/24, 8/65, 1/6
  • Point balances with expiry dates and alert dates
  • Transfer partners and ratios, so you check before you move
  • Redemption log with automatic cents-per-point and a good/bad flag
  • Denials log, referrals, bank bonuses, annual earn and burn summary
$79 · one-time · Google Sheets
Get the tracker
One hour, one trip

Redemption Planning

Bring a destination, rough dates and your balances. I find the routing, check the transfer partners and ratios, and tell you what the booking is worth per point — or that you should pay cash this time.

  • Award search across the programs your points can actually reach
  • Transfer path and timing, including bonuses worth waiting for
  • Cents-per-point maths on each option, side by side
  • An honest “don’t use points for this” when that’s the answer
  • Written summary afterwards so you can book it yourself
$250 · per hour
Book a call

The baseline

What I value a point at

These are my own working numbers, not a published index. Every redemption gets measured against them — above the line is a good burn, below it usually means paying cash was the smarter move.

Working valuations — reviewed as programs change
CurrencyValueWhere it earns its keep
Chase Ultimate Rewards2.05¢Transfer partners; rarely the portal
American Express Membership Rewards2.00¢Airline partners, especially during transfer bonuses
World of Hyatt1.70¢Consistently the strongest hotel currency
American Airlines AAdvantage1.50¢Partner premium cabins, not domestic economy
United MileagePlus1.45¢Dynamic pricing — check every time
Marriott Bonvoy0.84¢Volume currency; fifth-night-free rescues it
Hilton Honors0.60¢Earn freely, burn quickly, expect little

Valuations are personal and subjective. They reflect how I redeem, not what a point is “worth” in the abstract, and they move when programs devalue.

Inside the tracker

Ten tabs, one system

Each tab exists because I lost money without it.

Card history

Applications, approval dates, minimum spend deadlines, bonus posted, annual fee due, closure dates.

Issuer rules

5/24, 2/90, 2/3/4, 6/24, 8/65, 1/6 — with your own counts calculated against them.

Card benefits

Credits, elite status, insurance — what you're actually paying the annual fee for.

Point balances

Every program, with expiry dates and the date you need to act by.

Transfer partners

Ratios and transfer times, so you never move points the wrong direction.

Redemption log

Cash price, points used, cents per point, and a flag against your target value.

Denials log

What was declined and why — the pattern matters more than any single no.

Bank bonuses

Deposit requirements, hold periods, payout dates, and the tax paperwork to expect.

Referrals

Sent, pending, and paid — tracked so nothing quietly goes missing.

Annual earn & burn

What came in, what went out, and what the year was worth in real terms.

The method

Earn, hold, burn — in that order

The whole discipline is refusing to skip the middle step.

STEP 01

Earn deliberately

Applications sequenced against issuer rules, sized to spend you were already going to make. No manufactured urgency, no chasing a bonus you can't hit.

STEP 02

Hold without hoarding

Points sit in the flexible currency until a specific booking exists. Transfers are one-way — the moment you move them early, you've given up your options for free.

STEP 03

Burn above the line

Every redemption gets priced in cents per point against the cash fare. Above target, book it. Below, pay cash and keep the points for a trip that deserves them.

Where the points went

Trips the maths paid for

Not a portfolio — just proof the method ends somewhere worth going.

Sunset over the Arno river in Florence, bridges silhouetted against a gold sky.
Florence
The Hong Kong skyline at dusk seen across Victoria Harbour.
Hong Kong
Slot canyon walls rising above the river in Zion Narrows, Utah.
Zion Narrows

Before you ask

Reasonable questions

Will this hurt my credit?

Applications create hard inquiries and lower your average account age, both of which move a score. Most people who do this in an organised way see it recover within months, but it is a real effect and worth understanding before you start. If you're applying for a mortgage in the next year, this is not the year to churn.

Is this financial advice?

No. I'm not a financial advisor, and nothing here is a recommendation about your finances. It's a system for tracking points and a second opinion on award bookings. Decisions about credit and spending are yours.

Do you get paid by card issuers?

Not for anything on this page. The tracker and the planning calls are what I sell, and neither is influenced by which cards you hold. If that ever changes, it'll be disclosed clearly and in plain language.

Do I need business cards to make this work?

No, but they help. Business cards often sit outside consumer application rules and carry large bonuses. A sole proprietorship with real activity is enough to qualify at most issuers — inventing a business is not, and isn't something I'll help with.

What if I only travel economy?

Then the maths changes and the tracker still works. Economy redemptions rarely clear a high cents-per-point target, which usually means cash is the better buy and your points should wait. That's a legitimate answer, and knowing it saves you from bad burns.

Is the tracker a template or a service?

A template. You get your own copy in Google Sheets, you own it, and it works offline from me. Updates for the first year are included when issuer rules change.

Start

Stop guessing what a point is worth.

Buy the tracker and log your next redemption properly — or bring me one trip and I'll tell you whether the points are worth spending on it.

Get the tracker — $79 Book a planning call